First Day of School

Today was a big day. Frankie's first day of Kindergarten.

One of the uniform rules for his school is that shoes have to be solid brown or black. We scoured the town for these brown shoes that were comfortable for him. They had some red accents on ribbon, I figured I could Sharpie over them. Not so much. I ended up mixing up some brown acrylic and painting over the ribbon. I told Frankie not to splash in any puddles. We'll see if it holds up.

Running full speed into the school. I was struck by my little boy running into this big building.

Once inside, Frankie went to work writing his name on his paper.

Can you tell he was happy to be there?

Frankie gets to be in Kennadi's class again. It was mostly luck this time, but I'm not complaining.

The strangest part of the day: I didn't lose it. After taking pictures, absorbing things for a minute, and giving Frankie a kiss on the cheek, I calmly left without looking back. I walked out and got in my car and still didn't cry. I had been dreading the emotions I would feel on this day, but Frankie's joy brought me joy. I like his teacher and there is a good, safe feeling in the classroom and the school. He is going to have such a good experience.

Picking him up ended up being a little more stressful then dropping him off, mostly because I let myself get flustered and worried. If I would have taken a deep breath and just kept my car where it was supposed to be it would have been fine. And actually it was fine regardless, Frankie and my other charges made it safely home.

His report after school was that he loved it. He liked the playground, but they can't climb up on the tower because a boy fell off of it and broke his leg (I think he told me about that 3 times), it was someone's birthday so they had a treat, he gets green cards when he's good and they go in a pouch with his name on it, and they learned about manners. His only disappointment was that they didn't sing songs like in preschool. That pulled my heartstrings a bit. Growing up is hard. I hope they sing songs sometimes.

Here's to my Kindergartener. It's going to be a fun year.